By JT Taylor, Sr. Marketing Manager, Service Provider Marketing, Cisco

Here's something you undoubtedly already know: As consumers, we're getting more and more connected. By some estimates, we fiddle with our phones every six seconds, on average. (Not you or me, of course. Absolutely not.)

But some flavors of connected stuff we visit much less frequently - when was the last time you spent some quality time with your connected thermostat, for instance? Sure, it was fun and shiny at first - maybe that first month - but now it's a trusted household helper, operating in the background.  All the better, really, because there are certainly limits to how much or how frequently we want to interact with what are, in essence, appliances.

But let's revisit that "trusted" descriptor. It's a fact that pretty much all connected devices can be breached. Not a biggie when it's a thermostat (although yes, and anecdotally, there is a tale of breakup angst that involved a jaded spouse turning the heat up and down in their former home.)

On the other hand, what if it's the garage door? Unfettered access to your home, and thus all your stuff - not good. What if it's the webcam in the baby's room? Yes, the mere thought of it is gross, and yes, it happens. The sad fact is that a hacker can gain control of any connected device in your home simply by tricking you to think you are interacting with a legitimate sever when actually, you're engaging with their servers. From there, the level of nefarious that can happen is beyond problematic. It's downright scary.

Which is a teaser to do one of two things, or better yet, both: Download the INTX Spring Technical Forum paper, and/or see me deliver the corresponding presentation. The session is titled "The End of Guesswork: Big Data Analytics and Implications for Content Delivery," and it goes from 8-9 a.m. on Wednesday in room 157 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Hope to see you there!